Reading to Learn: Super Summarizers

As students
become better readers, it is important for them to know how to gain meaning and
understanding about what they are reading. The ability to summarize is
vital to understanding. It is also a way to make sure students are getting the
most important ideas from a text. Although there are many comprehension
strategies, this lesson will focus on teaching students how to summarize a
selection of text. Students will use strategies such as deleting unneeded
information and using a graphic organizer.

Materials:

-Individual copies of the article: Baby Boom! Giant Panda Cubs Give Hope to an
Endangered Species

-Individual copies of the passage: Tiger

- Chart paper with
first 2 paragraphs ofBaby Boom!article

-Pencils, paper,
highlighter, pens (1 for each student)

-Dry erase board

-Poster with the
sentence, “Beware of bees because they can sting”.

-Summarization
Checklist for teacher (see below)

Did the Student…

Yes

No

Get rid of
unimportant and repeated information?

Organize items and
events together?

Select a topic?

Write a topic
statement that covers everything that is important from the passage of the
text?

Procedure:

1. Begin lesson by introducing to the students
the comprehension strategy of summarizing. “Today we will be talking about
summarizing. Summarizing is a great way to help us understand after we read a
passage or book. We could say that summarizing is like recapping the most
important events of what we read.”

2. Next, review with students about
crosschecking and rereading to help understand a statement that they are having
problems with. “Before we talk about summarizing, let’s go over what to do if
we come across a word that we do not understand.” Show students the poster with
the sentence, ‘I have a big day tomorrow’. Students, if I read this sentence, ‘I
have a big dad tomorrow’,I would think that sounds weird.
Let me read the sentence again slowly. ‘I havvveee a biggggg dddadd tooomorrroww.
dad? Oh, day, I have a big day tomorrow! As you can see, cross-checking helps
us when we do not understand words.”

3. “Now, we will discuss the rules of
summarization. Let’s look at these rules” (Write rules on the white board and
read each rule aloud as I write it). Rule number 1: Get rid of unimportant and
repeated information. This rule is basically telling us to take out anything
that is not important to the passage we are reading and anything that is
mentioned more than once. Rule number 2: Organize items and events together.
This rule simply means to get all of our information together and organize it.
Rule number 3: Select a topic. This means that we should create a topic that is
only one or two words that tells exactly what we will be talking about. Rule
number 4: Write a topic sentence that covers everything you find important
about what you read. This can be very brief, but it needs to cover what you
find to be very important out of everything you read! Now, we are going to read
the first two paragraphs of the article you have on your desks.” (Have students
read quietly to themselves.) “Once we have finished reading, I will show you
how to effectively summarize the statement we just read”.

4. Now, show the students the chart paper with
the first two paragraphs written on it. “As you can see, I have written out on
chart paper what we just read. We will use this to mark out unneeded
information to help us with the summarization process. I will model for you
exactly how to summarize, and then you will do it on your own! So, what is the
first step in the summarization process we have on the board? Correct, get rid
of unimportant or repeated information. Okay, so what do I see on the chart
paper from what we read that seems unimportant? The first sentence in this
passage does not seem to be important, so I will mark that out. I think that we
can also mark out the last sentence in the passage. These do not need to be in
our summary. The second to last sentence in the passage does not need to be
included either, so I will mark that out. The second sentence in paragraph one
is important to show how many pandas actually survived. The second sentence in
paragraph two is important to show the reader about how much a baby panda
weighs at birth. Now we are ready to move on to step 2, which is organizing the
events and together. We are going to come up with an idea of what the article
is about. I will use my highlighter to mark the most important phrases. Now I
will highlight the only sentence we have left in the first paragraph. For the
second paragraph, I will highlight every sentence except the last sentence,
which we marked out. Now it is time to decide on a main topic for our summary.
After reading these sentences, I believe that ‘Su Lin’ is a great topic. I will
write that on the board as we start writing our summary. Now it is time for the
final step, a topic sentence. Remember that this is one sentence that recaps
the whole passage we read. Let’s read over what we have left that we have
highlighted.” (Read highlighted sentences aloud with class). “I believe that a
good topic sentence would be, ‘Su Lin is one of 19 captive pandas who
turned a year old, and she now weighs 75 pounds, making her the third giant
panda cub born in California Zoo. (Write this sentence on white board under the
topic).

5. “Next you are going to practice summarizing
using a different reading!” (Pass out copies of passage, Tiger,to every student). Before we start this passage I would like
to talk about what the term conservation means.
It is in the first paragraph of the article. Lets read this first paragraph
together. Conservation in this context means preserving a natural environment
for protection. An example of this would be, “The animal activist practiced
conservation by not allowing people to hunt lions.” Ask, “Does anyone have any
other examples?” Students give examples and discuss meaning. “Great, now lets
get into this text.” (Give ‘book talk’) “This is a passage all about tigers.
How big are they when they are born? What do they like to do? You’ll have to
read the passage to find out! Remember after you read to go back and cross out
any information that is not important. Then you will highlight the sentences
that are important to the main idea. Next, you will find a topic and write a
topic sentence. Any question?

6.
Assessment:

Teacher will evaluate student’s marking on the passage
they are given, as well as the summary they have written. Teacher will use the
summarization checklist included above.